Don't
by emberger
Summary: Don't get any closer, I don't feel the same way. JohnnyxPonyboy.
1. A Kiss is a Lovely Trick

**I wrote this a long time ago and decided to publish it. It's not finished and never will be.**

**I don't own The Outsiders or any of the characters.**

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Ponyboy and Johnny Cade sat together on a park bench near the beaten up tennis courts, tossing a bouncy ball they had gotten at one of the vending games at the gas station. They both wanted to say something to each other, but they had no idea where to start.

Johnny Cade took in a breath and straightened his shoulders, as if he was about to speak, which made Ponyboy clasp his hand on the oncoming bouncy ball and look over at him. But then Johnny seemed to have forgotten what he was going to say, or decided not to say it, because he slouched back down again on his side of the bench and held out his hand to receive the ball from Ponyboy.

Ponyboy refused to give the ball back to Johnny Cade, however, and decided that he should be the one to start the conversation. "So…," he started. He focused his eyes more on Johnny, expecting him to retaliate.

Johnny sat there for a few seconds, as if playing over scenarios in his mind; what would Ponyboy say if he said this, or what would Ponyboy say if he said that? But he just drummed his fingers on the side of the bench and leaned forward. "So…?"

Ponyboy, disappointedly, sank back onto the bench and fiddled with the ball in his two hands. He took a long, deep sigh and said, "We're gonna have to talk about this sometime." He slammed the bouncy ball hard on the ground. Apparently there was a piece of loose gravel or a lone rock exactly where he'd slammed it, because it bounced off into the other side of the court and stopped at the wall. Ponyboy and Johnny Cade just watched it roll away, both too lazy to chase after it and not wanting to break the conversation they had worked so hard to start. Johnny, however, was thankful for the diversion that bought him some time to think about how to respond to Ponyboy.

But before Johnny Cade could say anything, Ponyboy spoke up. "All I want to know is what exactly you meant."

Johnny Cade knew exactly what Ponyboy was talking about. Last week, Ponyboy had found Johnny crying in the rain in an alleyway. Johnny refused to tell Ponyboy what was wrong, but Ponyboy put his arm around him to comfort him as a brotherly gesture. Johnny, however, took Pony by the shoulders and turned him to face him. Johnny was kneeling on his knees and Ponyboy was squatting on the balls of his feet, not wanting to get his pants dirty. They just remained like that for the longest time, sitting there looking at each other. But then Johnny moved his hands up from Pony's shoulders to his face, gently stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. Ponyboy, not exactly understanding what was going on, just sat there and interpreted this as Johnny's way of confiding in him. But then Johnny's hand moved slowly to Ponyboy's hair, running his hands through the long, brown, wet strands, and then to the back of his neck, stroking it with his thumb as he was his cheek.

Johnny pulled Pony's face slowly toward his until their lips were centimeters from touching. "I love you," Johnny whispered, and pressed his lips against Ponyboy's. But just as quickly as their mouths were joined, Ponyboy shot up from his squatting position and scrambled away, tripping over himself several times on his way.

Johnny picked at the frays on the pockets of his khaki shorts and twisted a strand between his forefinger and thumb. "I meant what I said." Ponyboy thought that he was going to add to that statement, but after a few moments he figured that Johnny Cade meant to leave it at that. He didn't cease twisting the frayed strands, and Ponyboy was thankful he had that to look at instead of Johnny's face.

"I'm not a queer or anything," Ponyboy said a little too quickly. _Stupid, stupid, stupid, _he said in his mind.

Johnny Cade's face seemed to snap up immediately to meet Ponyboy's eyes at the word 'queer'. Ponyboy looked at Johnny too, but looked back down at the ground when he saw that his eyes were filled with hurt. "Why do you call it queer?" Johnny asked. He was still looking straight at Ponyboy, he could see it out of the corner of his eye.

Ponyboy squeezed his eyes shut. _So Johnny really is gay,_ he thought. He opened them and saw that Johnny returned to playing with his shorts. Ponyboy knew subconsciously that Johnny Cade was gay, but he felt as if he needed oral confirmation to really be able to accept it. "So are you really…" He was going to say 'gay,' but his voice gave out to a barely-audible whisper when he came to the word.

"Gay, yeah," said Johnny. He was squeezing the end of the bench now, Ponyboy could see that his knuckles were white, and looking off to the other end of the tennis court near where the bouncy ball stopped. "And I'm not about to hide my feelings for you either."

Ponyboy was taken aback by this. "F…feelings?"

"Of course. Why do you think I did what I did?" Johnny Cade drummed his fingers on his thigh. What he really wanted to do was grab Ponyboy's hand and intertwine his fingers with his, but he knew doing that would scare the wits out of Ponyboy.

They heard a voice off in the distance, and they looked over to see Sodapop and Two-Bit Matthews walking down the street towards them. Johnny quickly got up and turned toward Ponyboy. "Please don't tell the guys, Pony. At least not yet." He started jogging to get the bouncy ball on the other side of the court while Ponyboy started walking to meet Soda and Two-Bit.

Ponyboy understood why Johnny wouldn't want him to tell anyone. Once he told someone, the whole world would know. That's just the way it worked. And once the Socs found out, if Johnny ever planned to tell anyone but Pony, he would never hear the end of it. Hearing that Johnny was gay, and a Greaser, nonetheless, would be the perfect reason to beat up on him.


	2. Love is a Temporary Madness

**Hey hey hey. :) So I decided to continue this story. I know I only got 2 out of 4 reviews (one of those 4 being a particularly mean one x_x) that said I should continue, but it kinda inspired me :P. And I wrote this new chapter and I liked it. So here it is for whoever wants to read it I guess o.o;. And if I get inspired again, I might even do another chapter and maybe even finish a story for the first time ever!**

**So here it is. Oh, and BTdubs (haha I got that from the Juno look-a-like in Disaster Movie), sorry for any inconsistencies between this chapter and the first. I didn't exactly read the first one over before I did the second one... :X!**

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Ponyboy just sat there on the bench for a minute, staring daggers at the straight white lines on the cracked, dark green asphalt, pondering everything. For some reason, subconsciously, he felt like he knew that this was coming, and he was beating himself up inside for not trying to stop it. _Trying to stop it?_ He thought to himself. _Trying to stop what? Johnny loving me?_ It was a heinous, almost insane thought. He'd always loved Johnny with his whole heart. _And if Johnny loves me differently from how I love him… well, it's still love, isn't it?_

"Ponyboy!" Sodapop, Pony's brother and best friend, almost screamed at him, interrupting his thoughts. The bench-ridden boy tore his gaze from the ground and shot his head up to see Sodapop, waving his hand in front of Pony's face and following up his previous shouting with, "Helloooooo?", Two-Bit Matthews, looking impatient by having his arms crossed and tapping his foot, and Johnny, chin sunk to his chest and hands buried deep in his pockets, avoiding looking at anyone, shifting weight between one leg and the other and kicking up nonexistent dust.

He must have been zoning out longer than he thought. "Sorry. What? What's going on?" Ponyboy asked, squinting to look at the three boys' faces. Johnny Cade was still trying to avoid his eyes, but Pony saw him glancing up once in a while in his peripheral vision.

Sodapop crossed his arms, almost mirroring Two-Bit in stance. "We met some girls at the drive-in theater. Hot girls. Smokin' girls." Two-Bit's impatient scowl suddenly turned into a beaming grin, like the face of a young boy at a candy store. He and Sodapop smirked at each other.

"Um… well… cool," Pony confusedly stated. "That's very nice for you." He threw a quick glance at Johnny, noticing that he was looking at him, but averted his gaze back to Soda when Johnny shot his eyes back down to the ground. _I just want to see if you're alright! _Ponyboy beckoned to him in his mind.

Soda rolled his eyes and ruffled his dirty blonde hair with his hand. He looked at Pony like he was the most dim-witted person in the world and said, "They both have little sisters. One's your age and one's Johnny's age. And they're hot. Well… I mean, for you." He sighed and rolled his eyes again when Ponyboy was still giving him a puzzled stare. "They need a date this Friday night. You know, the sock hop at your school?" He then started grinning again when Pony's eyes widened with realization. "Ahh, now you understand."

"And maybe later that night you two can get some booty," Two-Bit chimed in, demonstrating his statement by thrusting his hips forward and pulling his arms backward simultaneously, his head facing up towards the sky with lips puckered in an "O" formation and eyes squeezed shut. After about three or four thrusts, he broke his stance and started laughing like it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever done in his life. But when he looked to his right to Sodapop's disapproving glare, he stopped immediately and stared straight at the ground, him now mirroring Johnny's stance.

Ponyboy was about to eagerly tell Soda that he and Johnny would be there when he stopped dead cold, biting his tongue. Johnny. This time, instead of glancing, he worriedly stared at Johnny's face. It was worse than he had thought it would be; his eyes were squeezed shut, chin still glued to his chest. His hands were now out of his pockets, one hand holding up his other arm, whose hand was cradling his head. He looked more depressed, more out of place, more uncomfortable, more embarrassed than Pony had ever seen him before, and no one but Pony even knew why.

It wasn't long before Soda and Two-Bit followed Pony's remorseful gaze to Johnny Cade. Soda's eyes widened. "Yo, Johnny, what's wrong?" He walked the few steps to where the discomfited boy was standing and put his arm around his shoulders, leaning over a bit to try to look into Johnny's face. When he didn't answer, Soda turned to Pony. "What's the matter with 'im?"

"He's just had a rough day," Pony returned a little too fast. He also walked over to Johnny and comfortingly rubbed his shoulder, wondering in a tiny part of his mind what that felt like to him. "I'll take care of him. And I'll get back to you on the date thing later."

Sodapop abruptly stepped away from Johnny and looked at Pony like he'd been slapped. "What?! Seriously? You have a chance at a date with two ferociously hot girls and you have to think about it?" His mouth was literally gaping wide open, like Pony had just performed the most absurd act he'd ever seen.

"That what I said," Ponyboy returned. They stared at each other a while, Two-Bit, not at all paying attention to the situation, gazing around the tennis courts, searching for something to look at, Soda still staring, cavernous mouth and all, at Pony, and Pony staring right back with the most indifferent look he could manage. After they had stayed like this for a while and Two-Bit started to confusedly stare at them because of the lack of chatter, Ponyboy finally said, "Could you guys please go back to your strip club now? Or whatever you do on Wednesday evenings?"

Soda's jaw snapped back to its normal position and his lips turned into a thin line. "Fine," he simply stated. And with that, Soda and Two-Bit turned around and started back towards the way they came, Two-Bit's broken sneakers slapping on the ground.

After the two were out of site, Pony turned to Johnny and lightly grasped his shoulders. "You okay, man?"

Johnny, face still in his hand, shook his head while a tear rolled down his cheek. "No."


	3. Burn

**Sorry for the long break. I can't believe the whole summer went by and I didn't even update. I'm sorry. I hope you all are still reading. The reviews have been great, thank you all very much.**

**Also, sorry for the inconsistencies between the book and my story. But after all, it's my creation, so I changed a few minuscule details to fit what I wanted to happen.**

**A long chapter (I hope you'll still read), but important.**

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Johnny lay on the navy blue twin bed in his room and threw a basketball up in the air towards the ceiling, letting gravity take its course almost until the ball was centimeters away from his nose, only to quickly save himself by catching the ball with his fingertips. He found himself wishing that the ball was a 500 pound weight that would fall on him and shatter him into pieces. That's how he felt at the moment, anyways.

He was gay. And he was in love with his lifelong best friend, who completely rejected him just days ago and then basically ditched him when he started showing the teeniest bit of emotion by shedding one stupid tear. He replayed that day in his head.

"You okay, man?" Pony had asked after Soda told him about the date with the two hot girls.

Johnny shook his sunken head while a tear dropped down his cheek. "No." There was a few seconds of silence, but it felt like years. In a moment, the whole atmosphere had changed from just sad to sad and extremely awkward. Johnny sniffed as he looked up at his friend. Pony was just standing there with his eyebrows raised, looking completely perplexed. "Um, are _you_ okay?" Johnny interrogated while wiping the tear from his cheek. For a split second, Pony looked like he was about to say something, but then he just took off running. Across the court, out of the fenced area, up the street until he was out of sight. Johnny called out a few times to him, but to no avail.

Pony hadn't answered Johnny's phone calls, talked to him, or even acknowledged him since that day. And now he would have to force himself to go on a date with a girl he already knew he would have no interest in while hiding any and all affection for the one he truly wanted to be with.

"Life sucks," Johnny mumbled to himself. He threw the basketball up again, watching it float up, hang in the air for a split second, and then start to come down.

"Johnny, your little friend Pony's here!" his foster mom Julia called up to him from downstairs. Johnny froze. All at the same time, his heart leapt, his stomach turned over, and his ears and cheeks felt like they were on fire and turned bright red. And then, boom. Something hit him right in the head, making him slip off the bed onto the hard floor.

"Oof," he grunted. He sat on the ground and rubbed his head, remembering about a second ago he had thrown the basketball up. He slammed his fist on the ground in anger and then quickly stood up. Pony was waiting.

He dashed down the stairs, almost embarrassingly slipping on the way down. "Hi," he said to Pony, still a little out-of-sorts from the blow to the head.

Pony was looking at the ground, too ashamed and embarrassed to even acknowledge Johnny. "Sodasentmetocomegetyoubecauseit'stimeforthemovie," he mumbled hurriedly as one huge word. He then started to turn away from the doorway to start walking.

"Wait, what?" Johnny asked confusedly, too upset at the snubbing to even try to decipher the embarrassed boy's long string of words.

"Soda. Sent. Me. To. Come. Get. You. Because. It's. Time. For. The. Movie," he angrily snapped without even turning around and started walking again. It struck a bad chord in Johnny's heart. Pony had never talked like that to him before. This was even worse than getting ignored.

"Julia, I'm going to a movie," he called over his shoulder, shut the door behind him, and ran out to catch up with Ponyboy.

They walked in silence down the sidewalk for a while. Pony obviously did not want to be anywhere near Johnny, walking extremely fast so that Johnny, even with his million mile long legs, had to almost jog to keep up with him. It was clearly not the time, but Johnny could not help but fantasize about them walking together hand in hand instead of Ponyboy up ahead with him awkwardly trailing behind.

Johnny finally was able to keep a steady pace with Pony after a few minutes of walking. Staring at the ground, he feebly attempted to get any answers at all out of his walking companion. "Is… is there a reason as to why you're… um, well… ignoring me?" He stole a look at Pony's face out of the corner of his eye and then continued to stare at the ground.

Pony kept walking as if Johnny were completely invisible and he hadn't even heard him ask a question at all. Johnny shut up the rest of the way and didn't even bother trying to keep up with Pony, following no less than 10 feet behind him.

Johnny knew that Pony was being a real jerk. He knew that his best friend was completely ignoring him when all he did was say his real feelings. But he couldn't help but stare at his friend's back and fantasize about them being together. He wished so badly that Pony was the one he was going to the movies with tonight, and thought about them sitting outdoors in the grass under the stars, Pony's arm around him while he rested his head on his love's chest. Johnny breathed a sigh of longing, wondering how long he could live with just fantasizing and not doing.

If Johnny had been nervous before they had reached the drive-in theater, now his nervousness developed into a gargantuan monster. How was he supposed to treat this girl? What was he supposed to say? Johnny had never had a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, for that matter) before. How was he going to handle Ponyboy flirting with the girl he was with? He definitely did not want to treat the girl he was set up with like Ponyboy was treating him. He wouldn't wish this terrible hole-in-the-heart feeling on anyone.

And then when the two girls were actually in sight, the monster of nervousness developed into four monsters capable of taking over the universe. They were pretty, Johnny could still acknowledge that, but he didn't think any more of it. One had long, dark brown hair that was in loose curls a little down past her shoulders, big, grayish-blue eyes, a little pixie nose, and a petite frame. The other had straight, medium-length sandy blonde hair, cute little squinty green eyes, and was very… well, "well-endowed," which, to Johnny's annoyance, immediately caught the interest of Ponyboy.

"Hey, my name is Peter," Ponyboy excitedly said to the blonde, sticking out his hand. Having been embarrassed of his eccentric name ever since he started dating girls, he lied to every girl he met, saying his real name was Peter but all his guy friends called him Ponyboy. Johnny found this increasingly annoying, but delighted in seeing him cutely get flustered in embarrassment whenever he called him by his real name in front of girls.

The blonde took his hand, shook it lightly and said, "Hey Peter, nice to meet you. I'm Lindsey." She shifted her weight to her other leg and shyly started to rub her arm, all the while smiling at him flirtatiously. Johnny decided that he didn't mind her that much because she seemed to be a nice girl, but still had a jealous hatred of her for being Pony's date.

Suddenly, Johnny remembered that he had a "date" he was supposed to be attending to. He turned to face the brunette and followed almost exactly what Ponyboy did. But Johnny soon learned that the brunette was completely different from the blonde.

"Johnny," she simply said after he had introduced himself, and grabbed his one hand with both of hers. She looked into his eyes for what seemed like minutes, squinting as if she could see into the very depths of his soul. Finally, after it seemed like she found what she was looking for in Johnny's eyes, she said, "Nice to meet you."

Johnny just stood there, confusedly staring at her, but was, in some strange way, intrigued. He'd never seen a girl act like that before.

"Her name's Layna," Lindsey stated, making the fact that she was annoyed known by rolling her eyes and smiling at Ponyboy. "Let's go, Peter." She interlaced her arm with his and strutted off towards the movie screen. Johnny decided that he no longer liked her at all.

Layna and Johnny awkwardly stood there for a long time, watching the two walk off. After Johnny realized that Layna was most likely not going to initiate the conversation, he feebly tried, looking up at her. "So… do you wanna go find a place to sit?"

"Yeah," she replied, and confidently beamed at him. _The woman of few words_, he thought. _But somehow still so interesting, even to __me__._

Johnny made a hasty beeline for where Ponyboy and Lindsey were sitting, trying and failing to be nonchalant, as Layna silently trailed behind him. Disappointedly finding that there was only a spot about ten feet behind the two, Johnny laid out the blanket Layna had brought for them and sadly plopped on the ground, creeping himself out by secretly wishing that he was Lindsey. Layna quietly sat next to him and started studying his face.

Feeling a little awkward that Layna was just staring at him and not saying anything, Johnny looked over at her and forced a happy face, hoping that she would stop. But she didn't. She just amusedly smiled back and continued staring when he looked away.

"So, Layna," he said after a few more awkward moments of sitting, staring, and silence. It was a completely foreign notion that he couldn't even focus on what Pony and Lindsey were doing. "That's an interesting name. Is there a story behind it?"

"Yep," Layna stated, and finally stopped staring at Johnny to lean back on her hands and face forward, looking up as if she were reminiscing to herself. He was about to ask what the story was after more moments of silence was when she finally started to speak. "My mom liked the name Kayla. My dad liked the name Lana. So they put the names in a blender and out came the name Layna."

Johnny realized that this was the first time Layna had said more than three words and that he should take the opportunity to continue on the conversation. "Hm, interesting. What's your middle name?" he asked.

"Grace."

"Geez, that hardly lives up to your first name."

She smiled slickly at him. "Oh, so you don't like my middle name? And what's _your_ middle name?"

Johnny blushed; first over the question he had been asked, second that Layna quite possibly had actually been trying to flirt with him. He had been named after his deadbeat father who he wasn't too fond of anymore. And his father's name wasn't that flattering, either. "Morris," he mumbled, and blushed even redder, feeling stupid that he was getting so embarrassed in front of the cool Layna.

"Hmm. Johnny Morris…," she looked to him to reveal to her the rest of his name.

"Cade. John Morris Cade III." He smiled at her.

"Hmm, interesting," she said. Immediately after she finished her statement, the lights around the outdoor theater dimmed to almost black and the screen lit up with previews. Johnny began to ask what she had meant by "interesting," trying to keep the conversation going because he enjoyed talking to her, but she just held her pointer finger up to her lips and shushed him without even looking at him.

Johnny leaned back in the same position Layna was in and engrossed himself in the previews, enjoying Layna's company and completely forgetting about Ponyboy and Lindsey sitting ten feet ahead of him.

Layna watched the movie intensely, never even acknowledging Johnny. They sat the same way, almost like statues, until halfway into the movie, when Layna finally stirred to adjust to a more comfortable position of laying on her stomach. Another thing different about the girl that he was not used to in the slightest; whenever he and the guys went to a movie, it was nonstop talking, joking, burping, eating, pushing. In fact, he couldn't ever remember a movie that he actually paid attention to for more than five minutes.

Then one thought in Johnny's mind led to another. The guys. Ponyboy.

He quickly sat up and peered over the heads of the other people in the field enjoying the movie. For a second, he couldn't find them due to the darkness. Was it that couple on the right with the girl whose head was on the guy's shoulder? No, Johnny could clearly see that she was brunette. He started searching for the noticeable sandy blonde and busty traits that Pony's date possessed in the silhouettes in front of him. He quickly glanced over at Layna. She didn't seem to notice or care.

But then, behind Layna a few yards off on the side of the concession hut, he saw it. His worst fears and the things he dreaded the most come to fruition. His love, Ponyboy Curtis, in plain sight groping and feeling and kissing all over that blonde bimbo that Johnny couldn't even remember the name of. He saw Pony nibble on the girl's neck, and the girl throw her head back and squeal in mock-delight. They were in a tight embrace, body to body, running their hands up and down each other's backs while kissing every inch of skin above their clavicles.

Johnny wasn't really aware of anything after seeing that, but he was pretty sure that his heart dropped to the center of the earth and burned to absolutely nothing at that very moment.


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